Why an icy dip’s brrrilliant for your skin
KATE LAWSON’S first dunk in the North Sea sounds like torture. ‘The water was so cold that it burned. I felt as if there were frozen needles piercing my skin and I couldn’t breathe properly.’
Yet, six years on, she is addicted to swimming off the Northumberland coast near her home in Alnwick. Why? Because she, like thousands of other women who brave lakes, rivers and lidos across the country, says it makes her feel fantastic.
‘I came out absolutely pumped and wanting to do it again,’ says Kate, 21, a Northumbria University nursing student. ‘The tingle all over, the sense of freedom from not being hemmed in by a pool, it works a kind of spell.
‘I’ve started doing nursing placements and sometimes, if I’ve had a tough day, I find that swimming calms me and releases tension almost like meditation.’
Devotees of wild- swimming are convinced it has a strong therapeutic effect.
A recent University of Portsmouth study found they suffer fewer colds than other members of their families, and fewer than those who use indoor pools.
Dr Mark Harper, a consultant anaesthetist at Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals, is researching the benefits of cold water, and its anti-inflammatory effects. He has also swum outdoors for the past 13 years.
‘Cold water swimmers are able to maintain safe core heat, despite their environment,’ he says. ‘ This, theoretically, helps them to recover more quickly after operations as their immune systems have a reduced response to stress.
‘Stress can cause inflammation and some research suggests that can be a cause of depression.
‘My personal insight, that cold water swimming makes you feel great, led me to wonder if there was a link between post- swim exhilaration and a reduced level of inflammation.
‘ There is also anecdotal evidence swimmers find relief from conditions such as arthritis and Crohn’s disease,’ he says.
The image of open-water swimming has changed in the past decade. No longer seen as a pursuit for pensioners, it is now a mass participation sport. From small beginnings, the annual Great Swim, five open-water events that span Lake Windermere and London’s Royal Victoria Dock, now attracts 22,000 entrants. Last year more than half were women.
Writer Kate Rew, who founded the Outdoor Swimming Society in 2006, believes outdoor swimming, is especially attractive to women — and as a bonus they develop a healthy glow.
As Kate, 47, from Somerset, says, ‘It can be very good for the complexion — it’s probably a mixture of happiness and relaxation, exercise and increased circulation. ‘ I’m told most of the effects of a facial can be mimicked by a brisk walk that brings blood to the skin’s surface. Cold water certainly does that for you, and the effects are all over your body.’ There are also many swimmers who can only be described as hard-core. Londoner Kerry O’Hara is one of them, last year she swam the Channel in 12 hours, 46 minutes. ‘ I went through rough water at first and then a load of jelly fish and thought, “I don’t know if I can do this”, but the last seven hours were glorious.’ Kerry, a 38-yearold programme manager for the NHS, started cold-water training at Tooting Lido in South London to prepare for her Channel swim. The temperature there in December is often about 6c. Kerry still trains twice a week. ‘I’m hooked,’ she grins. ‘ Swimming outside is food for the soul. It makes you feel hyper-alive.’ In order to adapt their bodies, swimmers are told to complete four to six sessions in cold water. A wetsuit helps. ‘People must treat cold water with respect,’ says Kate Rew. ‘It produces something called the gasp reflex that makes you automatically take in a lungful of air — and if you breathe in choppy water, you are in trouble.
‘Another risk is where, as you cool down, the blood in your body goes to your core, leaving your arms and legs weaker, and once this happens even strong swimmers find it hard to cope.’
Sensible warnings over, it is time to hear from a convert who says outdoor swimming has transformed her life.
Community sports officer and mother-of-four Jane Hardy could barely doggy paddle the length of a pool eight years ago.
SINCEtaking lessons, she has swum the sharkinfested stretch from Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela was incarcerated, to the South African mainland; completed the annual 10km River Dart swim in Devon and won a Bronze medal in the Winter Swimming World Championships in Siberian water so icy it was like a ‘giant Slush Puppie’.
Jane, 49, regularly swims in the North Sea off the Northumberland Coast near her home.
‘I took it up at a stage in my life when I’d been running round like a lunatic after children for a long time and it felt like the beginning of a new chapter.
‘It’s led to me travelling all over the world, meeting an openhearted group of people and volunteering as a coastguard.
How does her family treat her enthusiasm? ‘ They know it makes me happy. In fact, if I happen to wake up in a bad mood my husband, Ian, tells me to go and take a swim.’